I wish I could do without Nigerian Education

I wish I could do without Nigerian Education

In the words of the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), Nigerian foremost legal luminary,“the welfare of the proverbial man on the street can only be guaranteed by the government that cares about the employment, health, education, infrastructure, good housing, cheap and nutritious food, national minimum living wage, old age care, pension, gratuity, security of life and property, free and fair election, transparency in the conduct of affairs of state and access by all to justice in a court of law.” Saying that Nigerian government at all levels have failed woefully in virtually all the cogent needs of the proverbial man as listed by Late Fawehinmi is stating the obvious.

Truly, education remains the only potent tool that can bring the national integration and the much needed development Nigeria has strived to achieve over a period of 53years independence. Painfully, education has been largely neglected, poorly funded and lamentably supervised by the government, who of course, is the largest sponsor of education in the country and the saving shield for the Nigerian masses and to as well save many from the exploitative tendencies of private education service providers. An average Nigerian, who cannot afford to live on $365 per annum, is not expected to enrol his child in a private primary school where more than $1000 greedily charged per annum.

Unfortunately still, the government has consistently caused the average Nigerian students feel the wide marginalization between private and government controlled schools, otherwise known as public schools. Right from my days in Ore – Ofe Oluwa School, a private primary school in the city of Ibadan, I knew what it was to be opportune to be in a private school. The comfort and quality of the teaching-learning process could not be disputed. After all, we paid exorbitant fees to the school proprietor(s). It was however a different case when I attended a public primary school for a week to enrol for the common entrance into secondary school at Primary 4. I won’t forget the day tears rolled down my tender cheeks – Young Gboluwaga cannot cope with the distress encountered in my new school. Much unlike where I was coming from.

Someone said the educational situation in Nigeria is like a pierced balloon, no matter how hard you pump air into it, it will never blow. How true?

After an extended early morning reflection during the passing week on the present state of affairs in the education sector of this country, I came to a depressing conclusion. My conclusion is: 'I wish I could do without Nigerian education, not in the 21st this century. Ancient history gathered from uncles, lecturers and parents proved that its good old days are gone.

I do not expect any progressive and patriotic Nigerian to question my conclusion. But for those who will try to do, I can boldly explain the useful information I gathered through personal experiences, which led to my hypothesis and eventually led to my sad conclusion.

Here I go:

(I fully intend to sound bad tempered in this piece with no iota of regrets.)

I don't know any institution in Nigeria that has made it to the first position in Africa not to talk of the world chart. South Africa leads the way, while our Obafemi Awolowo University, is managing the 10^th position. Imagine a Tanzanian university; university of Dar es Salaam is occupying the 4^th position. Our own premier university, university of Ibadan occupies an embarrassing 33^rd position. Yet we pride in the fallacy of hasty generalization, attributing Nigeria to be the giant of Africa.

Furthermore, what pertinent and peculiar research works had been produced from our universities and research institutes in the country in recent times? To me, higher institutions ought to be the site of intellectual inventions running after beautiful innovations, peculiar to our own local system.  We rather receive the brain work of elementary school students in countries with sane and stable educational system.

The last innovation carried out from my discipline, (Agricultural Science) is the Nigerian breed of beans from Obafemi Awolowo University, donkeys of years ago. How can we make research when the equipment in our laboratories are all archaic and outmoded? Many have turned to breeding house for rats and insects? In most saddening cases, the little research and innovations together with their brilliant inventors are bounded through the back door to foreign countries.

It is even non-consequential that many courses are disaccredited from our higher institutions. No thanks to the NUC whose eyes are not too dim and hands too short to peg many courses where schools have failed to meet up to our local standards and not the international standards in most cases. No thanks to inadequate manpower, learning aid and poor funding.

A system where the leaders given the mandate to steer the ship of the nation to greater heights  keeps diverting public funds to personal foreign bank accounts. Political officers and members of the parliament keep smiling home with scary amount of money on a monthly basis, at the expense of our national wellbeing and economic stability. Then, they send their children outside the country to receive and witness education in its right and complete sense.

An educational system where a four year academic contract is unduly and painfully extended to 5years with hard labour, under strenuous and unfriendly learning conditions, no thanks to regular industrial actions by both academic and non-academic staff in our institutions, as they keep agitating for improved motivation for service delivery. On some other occasions, protests by students for outrageous increase in fee and epileptic power supply and poor access to clean and portable water supply have led to the closure of schools for months.

With the educational system whose curriculum content is struggling to meet the demands and needs of the society, how then will it help catapult the nation to a position where it is technological, economically and politically reliant? No job to bring a fulfilling future for the thousands of graduates being produced. I am therefore not surprised when I see graduates of Electrical Electronics Engineering working behind the counter in banks, counting crisp of the Nigerian naira notes and a graduate of International relations returning to his family’s farm to till the ground, cultivate crops and rear animals while he depends on foreign research to get the latest species of crops, vaccines and drugs to boast his production. Graduates therefore keep living a frustrating life.

Strictly speaking, I looked into the realms of Nigerian educational sector and all I could see the painting on its walls saying ‘nothing works’. No thanks to nexus of neglects coupled with the aforementioned problems, among many obstinate problems. And at such, I can say I wish I can do without Nigerian education. But at least I find my succour in the fact that my days are numbered. With just a year left on my normal contract, I am off the scene. Perhaps, I progress in a more sane and convenient environment in Europe or America.

Olaomo Gbloluwaga John

dying love

Feigning love   

   

...We went into a garden to have a first-class solitude time to ourselves and to settle some sensitive issues, after minutes of profound arousing discussions, she asked for my hand and held it so tight, then, she gave an intense affectionate look into my eyes mentioned my name quixotically and said, “I love you so much & I will never leave you.” Oh! Those words sounded so real & genuine to me, you can imagine the surge which went through my nerves when I heard them. About five weeks after the meeting in the garden, fortunately/unfortunately, we brought a sudden and unexpected end to the relationship that seems to be heaven made. To be precise, the girl and I sustained a heartbreak injury.

That is a recount of my dazzling experience when I guilelessly went into a relationship. Truthfully, at that time I threw myself into it without knowledge and understanding, and like Apostle Paul, I can audaciously say “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

 Perhaps the story bears a resemblance with yours, you’ve been jilted, neglected and embarrassed out of a relationship you cherished & treasured so much. You gave your best into a relationship and you trusted nothing is going to be wrong with it. But suddenly, you couldn’t meet up with the terms that bounded the relationship, to your partner you suddenly became naive at the things you’ve be the best, you heard such words like “I hate you, I don’t like you anymore, I don’t think I will be able to continue with this relationship, we’ve had our better days,” or for some reasons known to the two of you, you decided to put a hasty halt to what seems to be a growing, stimulating and exciting relationship.

Sincerely, things like that happen. You’re not the first neither are you the last that will have a capsized relationship. Jilting has started long before now, and lovers will continue to jilt and we’ll always have victims, until we come into cognisance of the beauty of relationship. (‘the who’, ‘the why’,’ and the when’)

Whenever I see people who are sustaining a heartbreak injury and are trying to live in the realities of a shattered affair, I feel a burning zeal on the inside, I always wished I have some inert skills and prowess to help stage a reconcile. (I try, if necessary anyway, but, most times if not all are always beyond my personal mediation)

Many of us have had our share of heartbreak, not once or twice. We’ve experienced first class infatuation, we’ve been in that situation when the whole world seems crushing, a dreadful situation where  we want the grounds to open and probably swallow us, or that a whirlwind should come and carry us to another side of the world, where we’ll never have a chance to think of what has just happened. We’ve been in situations where we don’t want to see anyone around us – not even parents or any other family members, we don’t like to talk to no one and often times we prefer to stay in the confines of our rooms. Heartbreaks seize our appetite and make food become a complex entity so hard to devour, we lost our sleeps and as we lay on our bed at night, we gaze with widely open eyes into the ceiling compartments to make repeated counting; we get under a lot of stress, because, the body goes through loads of chemical reactions to releases ‘cortisol,’ a chemical which makes it difficult to make the body rest and think properly. Heartbreaks had on so many occasions led to mental illness. It will be so hard to dispute the fact that heartbreak has led to so many serious complicated health problems.

Mr David Nicholas when talking about love said:

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defences; you build up a whole suit of armour, so that nothing can hurt you. Then, one stupid person, not different from any other person, wanders into your stupid life... you give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t yours anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It hurts you and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should just be friends’ turns into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul – hurt, a real of it gets inside you and rips you apart (in) pain. I hate love”

This has always made me wonder if there is any relationship that is immune to crumbles and excruciating separation. I asked if I can genuinely love without getting hurt at the end and get the same love if not more in quality and quantity to which I have loved.  I got valid answers to my question, yes I did. I not only got answers, I’m into such relationship. My response negates Mr. David’s comments.

I got the unconditional love, more than what a girlfriend, fiancée, spouse, parents, family /well wishers can give, the love I got forgives, pardons and bestows with me qualitative gifts and dazzling advantages, the blessings I am entitled to in this relationship know no limits. The love is so real and powerful that my soul and heart bounce in peace and tranquillity always. My love (partner) always listens and never ignores, my love has never lets me down and never will. – This love really cannot be summed up in words or feelings; it is the best gift anyone can get.  It is the agape love. (Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down His life for His friends)

I was opportune to read a comment by a girl who was apparently having crush on a guy who had no feelings for her, she wrote: “I know what’s the worst thing ever... when you love a person and you think about him all day long. And the day comes you found out that he didn’t think of you even one sec”

I think I understand how she could have felt when she discovered she was not getting a reprisal love and feelings she has for the guy. Sense of sober dejection, she’ll feel awfully numb and terribly dissociated. She will have unrefined antipathy towards the guy, she will definitely go around with inward bitterness and could hurt anyone who misbehaves at the slightest provocation, she could sometimes cry about it.

Now, the entire indistinguishable emotional trauma she will pass through isn’t equivalent to what God, the pioneer of love (and my lover) faced and He is still facing when compared to what the girl felt immediately she noticed the guy she loves does not love her in return despite all the emotional approaches and advances.

It is interesting to know God loves us in a great way, the way He loves us we cannot tell it all, His love for us is unmatched with the type of love we have towards our fellow human beings. His love is so immense and quite unquantifiable.  Yet many of us have decided to jettison this divine love. If the girl could feel so awful, because the guy doesn’t perceive her love for him, how do we expect God to feel?

Human beings (myself & my spouse inclusive) love conditionally, they don’t forgive easily, they ask/expect in return, they measure love with material things. They insult you, ignore you, reject you and betray you. Most scary thing about human love is that it sometimes dies forever. But I boast and tell you of a love which is a truly opposite of human love.

We love him because He first loved us. “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God...” It’s interesting to fall in love with a partner that you can trust with your whole life, such love that can never fail or breakup. This love is real and with it I fear no heartbreak injury.

Out of love, He sent His only son to die for us, so that we can have unhindered access to life at its fullest and to life eternal, yet man have chosen to neglect this love, we act as if we don’t see it, we pretend and turn off our ears to the news of divine love. O How we have brought depression to the heart of the founder of love, we grief our ‘lover’ because we’ve failed to accept the love of God for our life, we are blindfolded to see great love. We prefer the mortal, feigning love at the expense of a real and immortal love – the agape love.

Olaomo Gboluwagapelumi J.

08037388087.